Should you settle down – Rant of the week

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Three heavy cocktails is usually what it takes to drown the personal filter that double checks my opinions before they’re let loose on the outside world, I had five when I began discussing with a friend about the idea of meeting the perfect guy or girl, the one, but that’s an unreasonable target to aim for… isn’t it?

I have this idea that for many people out there it’s to be expected, we want the best for ourselves and we should, for some it’s the tall mocha tinted man with enough beard for two, an asshole to everyone but yours truly. For others it’s that confusingly petite beer chugging blonde who’s into football and always suggests anal. To have anything else would be to settle for less than you deserve, to betray yourself and be unhappy. Kudos to those who have found their human checklist, to the rest still searching I almost admire your patience and resolve, but are we setting ourselves up for disappointment and frustration? We have more access to the opposite sex than we’ve ever had right at our finger tips, so why is finding that special blonde or beard man so challenging.

Well for one thing, we don’t bite the dust to horrible plagues at the age of 20 anymore, and Jenny in the next farm isn’t the only woman within 8 miles with a set of okay teeth.

I imagine “the one” back then was narrowed down to the woman who was least likely to die from 8 pregnancies and the man most able to chop firewood. The one? More like everyone else has the Black Plague. Luckily in the present everyone generally has nice teeth so we up the ante to profession, personality, beards, boobs and even hands weirdly enough. It’s no longer about self preservation and survival to most of us, we can work and become an integral part of society while never even choosing a mate, various ethnic groups mingle and rise beyond boundaries previously holding us back and not to mention you can stream episodes of Game Of Throne without a phone call disconnecting your internet. Why do we bother trying to find the perfect person at all… oh yeah happiness… did I not mention the internet thing.

So yeah I get it, we want to spend a considerable almost terrifying amount of time with someone that we think will add to or to some even define our happiness, so why would we invest all that time into someone we didn’t think we’d want to grow munchkins with. But talk about pressure, I don’t have that kind of mindset but it’s definitely affected the way I look at dates especially at my ripe age of 32. I was once told by a date that relationships move faster when we’re older and we can’t waste half a year being with someone without it going somewhere, that time is a commodity that constantly escapes from our grasp like a confused Pomeranian that just discovered she hates baths.

This is especially true for our female counterparts who carry societies pressures of marrying off and having a gazillion children while still maintaining that unrealistic hourglass shape, flawless skin and toned hooha.

Though I can’t help but feel that this adds unnecessary pressure, pushing us to procreate with other humans who suck much later on, take Melanie Trump for example, her husband became a human orange.

So back to the main course, should we settle or shouldn’t we? Settle sounds so unattractive here so I’m going to put a bit of a spin on it so it doesn’t sound like just anyone will do. I’m under the impression that almost nobody finds exactly what they’re looking for, the ones that do are incredibly lucky or convince themselves that they’ve found their needle in a haystack. So let’s say settling is picking out those top things you really want from whatever it is you’re looking for, maybe for you it’s super important that he’s reliable or great if she can get along with all your friends. Let’s say settling is going for what logically on paper can work and hoping the soul burning attraction comes a bit later, you’re attracted but you don’t see them in your wet dreams. I’m going to leave out the materialistic things like “so hot they make your eyes burn” as I think we subconsciously go for this value and ignore the obvious alarm bells like the 5 inch wide swastika tattoo on their left shoulder. Finally let’s simply say the opposite is to not settle and wait for that perfect person who only has eyes for you and wants to spend the rest of their life saving you from evil sorceresses, undead pirates and the occasional invasion of transforming alien robots.

You Settle

So you settle, hopefully you’re content, stable, and you have a reliable other half to share rent with. It works even though you rarely have butterflies in your stomach but they make you happy, or at least try to. Maybe you talk to your friends about other guys or girls you bumped into and shared a laugh with, you shrug it off as fantasy. If only they were taller, cuter, more successful, less available. You’re incredibly secure in your normal relationship, or maybe it all feels so routine. You feel safe in the certainty because the important stuff matters more and you care about what you’ve built up too much to crash it down, for now anyway.

You don’t Settle

So you wait for the one and you think you’ve found them, they’re the rainbow to your skittles, the burger to your lobster. You feel enough “spark” to make an epileptic puke, you knew within 2 months that they were everything you’ve always wanted, you’re so excited when you see them that you’re terrified when you don’t, every third party glance in their direction is a challenge that must be met with your tongue down their throat or a squeeze on their buttocks. They’re a bit vague but that’s what you like about them, always keeps you guessing, the mystery. You question how lucky you are to have them at all, you change yourself to meet their standards. Suddenly you can’t stand meat and mosh pits aren’t so annoying when you hug the corners. You’ve never been more happy, or more analytical about Whatsapp messages, or so anxious, or so frantic, or so confused about why it takes 6 hours to respond to a “good morning” text.

To conclude

Obviously these are tailored and in no way representative of what will happen if you settle or don’t. Maybe you’ll be the most happy since you settled, maybe you waited and you found an amazing person who also thinks you’re the shit.. not literally. In my opinion the one is a myth and we should try to find a realistic balance between the two… or not, it’s your life right do what you gotta do to get your fix.

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